Blog

Menu

Chris Froome, Energizer Bunny

Since the Tour finished on Sunday, how about tracking Chris Froome’s life? I have to assume that there was a big shindig in Paris after he won on Sunday.

Then on Monday, he flew back to England for a PR thing at Sky’s Corporate Headquarters, then back to Beligium for the Aalst Criterium, which he won. Pretty tight schedule. I guess he isn’t that beat from 3 weeks of bike racing?

Given, the start money criteriums, after the Tour, is not really racing. It is sort of just for show. But you do still have to ride around at over 25 mph for a while. I wonder how many he is going to do this year, since the Olympics are just a couple weeks away? SInce he has so much energy, maybe he’ll race them all, then do a redeye to Rio for the Olympic. Screw the time change, etc.

After the Olympics, there is no down time because he announced that he’s doing the Tour of Spain, wanting to double up with two Grand Tour victories. So, August is going to be just about as busy for him as July has been.

Chris must have a really good “life coach”. Someone to keep him focused. I bet Andrew Talansky didn’t think Chris would be at Spain when he skipped the National Time Trial, the Olympics, the Tour, to ride the Tour of Spain. Maybe he doesn’t care. I’d put my money on Froome either way.

He has about 45 race days this year including the TDF, I think. A couple big money crits, 2 days in Rio, 20 days in Spain and then done? Would he ride the Worlds RR, ITT or TTT? Usually does not ride much in fall as I remember. Vuelta he has ridden well before but still not won, all depends on who is healthy.

It this the stuff “we” don’t talk about? Or talk about indirectly? I mean, I have only been riding for about 7 years, and I have never raced. But I don’t understand a lot of what I have been seeing lately.

“Everyone is clean now” is clearly BS.
Lots of riders are still getting busted.
Those riders getting busted can’t keep up with “clean” riders like Froome.

Is that the set of points that in 10 years from now everyone reads obvious conclusions from?

What does that say about someone like Sagan? I like Sagan. Do I just presume anyone winning now, just like in the 90s, is not riding on meat and potatoes?

It’s complicated. I have been following the sport since ’85. I remember talking about EPO in bike shops in the mid-90s (including talking about LA- always seemed strange that what seemed like a pretty common rumors back then became shocking news years later.) I have watched a ton of racing and believe that when you do enough and see enough, if you have a discerning eye, it’s not too hard to spot things that appear odd. Looking back historically, there are plenty of wonderkind that would support Sagan’s trajectory- good from a very early age, obvious prodigy. Do I think he is not “enhanced”? Nope. but he is a natural talent. Froome on the other hand, has followed the LA trajectory, the Indurain trajectory, the Riis, etc. Next to no results, then join the right team and Boom! look at ya! unstoppable. And there’s always a narrative- From LA’s weightloss and F1 team to Bihlzaria or whatever and marginal gains. At that level, everyone is seeking marginal gains. Always have. I remember people drilling out brake arms and derailleur cages looking to lighten their bikes. Like Lemond says, there is no magic new training recipe.

I remember reading an article several years ago that was an interview of Froome’s Coach who coached Froome when he was young and riding in Africa. He said that Froome was a terrible climber and would never be good at climbing because of his body. For some reason that stayed me. This interview was published before Froome had tremendous success at the TDF. Now, with Froome’s three TDF’s wins, alarm bells go off when I see the way he climbs. It is not natural. Is it possible for someone to change themselves without doping? I don’t know.

“I have watched a ton of racing and believe that when you do enough and see enough, if you have a discerning eye, it’s not too hard to spot things that appear odd. ”

Having years of racing experience will also give you a pretty good idea of what kinds of daily performance differences are even possible in “similarly trained (and raced) men”. These pros ALL came out of our respective ranks. I remember Lance as an aggressive asshole-y “will-do-anything-to-win” kind of guy, but I never remembered him as being anything other than a naturally talented “high-high-level” rider. But he was never “superhuman” whilst in our domestic ranks.

Greg Lemond: He was different. Unless he had EPO coursing through his veins at age 14, he was simply “the chosen one”. He was the kind of domestic rider you could place bets on (for the win). He could beat ANY junior in the country at almost anything (anytime). He could beat MOST seniors too. His progression to the pro ranks was “well of course he’s going over there”.

I keep seeing all of these articles wondering why Froome’s rivals never attacked him. Why? Because they couldn’t. Froome and his homies are so collectively supercharged, they just run the throttle at the brink of maximum, all of the time.

Before the oxygen-vector era, you’d see rivals being able to take scary jabs at one another on the big climbs. Real fights… between “similarly trained men”.

I believe that teams like SKY assume that the public just buys into their “new clean era” story. You’d have to be CRAZY to dare to dope after the Lance fiasco, right? But people said the same thing after Festina (and other scandals). Yeah, Lance was precisely crazy enough to dope after Festina. It’s called the double-down strategy. Always double-down. That’s now how you win the TDF.

No. Unfortunately wattage and most modern telemetrics were not available until the EPO years were in full swing. VO2, fat%, weight, height, limb-lengths, age, team, coach, heart-rate, (by pulse-checks!), cadence, speed and distance were all manually calculated. But were absolutely used as data to analayze

Maybe current riders have about a 10-12% total performance advantage today? Lance got about 15%? I may be way off, but these are my observations.

All these tools have done is allow for the more efficient use of training time. But no way are you going to see that kind of increase in wattage output simply because you’re aware of an expression of work output.

I guess you didn’t see the Tour. He won a stage by attacking on a downhill also and got second on another to Sagan (and gained a few seconds on his GC rivals) by attacking on what was being called a “sprinter’s stage”. And best of all on the final run in to Paris he and the lads celebrated with Belgian beer instead of champagne. A working class hero is something to be! Best of luck to Froomey in Rio and in Spain.